The present invention relates to a capsule filling apparatus for filling a filler material such as, for example, powder, slurry or oil paste, into capsules such as hard gelatin capsules.
The capsules referred to above are generally supplied in a prelocked condition, i.e., a condition in which the capsule cap body is mounted on the capsule cup body, but can readily be removed therefrom at any desired or required time for, for example, filling of the filler material thereinto. Accordingly, in order for the prelocked capsules to be efficiently filled with the material, a series of procedures including, for example, the receipt of each prelocked capsule, the separation of the capsule cap body from its mating capsule cup body. the filling of the material into the capsule cup body, the capping of the filled capsule cup body and the ejection of each filled capsule, must be continuously carried out at respective stations disposed around, for example, a turntable.
In one prior art filling machine, there is employed a system wherein the capsule cap body and cup body are merely separated from each other in a vertical direction. In another prior art filling machine, there is employed a system wherein the capsule cap body separated from the associated capsule cup body is moved horizontally so that it can wait at a position latterally of the associated capsule cup body before the filling of the material into such associated cup body completes. In the first mentioned system, since a sufficient space can be obtained between the separated cap body and cup body, a combination with such a bulky apparatus as a slurry filling mechanism has been impossible. On the other hand, in the last mentioned system, since the direction in which the cap body is moved horizontally must be a centripetal direction, the apparatus tends to be unnecessarily overdimensioned.